This documentary won the Audience and Directing Awards at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. A true story, Susan Tom adopted 11 children with special needs. You would expect it to be either overwhelmingly depressing or sugary. It is neither. It is full of real kids who love life. It is starkly refreshing in its matter of act presentation. Should you see it? Absolutely, particularly if you have no interest in seeing a documentary about children with special needs.

There’s a growing number of fans of Russian-Kazakh film director Timur Bekmambetov, and you can count me as one of them. There’s the superb vampire-flick Nochnoy dozor (Night Watch) (2004), which was followed by the equally superb sequel Dnevnoy dozor (Day Watch) (2006). We can hardly wait for Twilight Watch, due to be released in 2009 (although rumored to be dead in the water). (The films are based on the three volumes of Nightwatch by Kazakh writer Sergei Lukyanenko.)

In 2008 Director Bekmambetov introduced himself to a wider audience with the film Wanted, starring Scotsman James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, and Angeline Jolie. It opened to generally favorable reviews, although at least one review seemed unnaturally focused on superstar Angelina Jolie’s mere supporting role and the question of whether James McAvoy was miscast against her. Not for children but strongly recommended on all accounts. We look forward to even bigger and better things from this creative and daring director.

Written, produced, and directed by Jonathan Caouette, Tarnation (***) is a powerful autobiographical documentary. Mr. Caouette cleverly weaves music and images into a moving tapestry about his life and his mother’s lifelong struggle with mental illness.

The film Tokyo Story (1953) (****) is a subtle masterpiece about Japanese culture in the early 1950s. Subtle, because the themes of the movie — aging, estranged adult children, the bustle of urban life, death — calmly build throughout the film, which runs about two hours and 15 minutes. A masterpiece, because it treats the characters, the locations, and the themes with careful and considerate generosity. In the hands of a lesser director, the film would have become tiresome, or maudlin, or would have created exacting ill-will about some of the children. The film needs some patience — the movie starts slowly, perhaps too slowly for film-watchers accustomed to intense action and the onslaught of computer graphics — but that patience is rewarded for those who have it. Strongly recommended.